Fire and Dark

• Photographer
  Christopher Paul Brown

Making art puts me into a special state where synchronicity and serendipity become commonplace. It’s as if I slip between the cracks of the ordinary world and enter an alternate dimension. The process presents itself less as one of creation than as one of discovery. At its heart is a mystery that can’t be conveyed by words. That mystery is what compels me to return again and again to making art. I become the space where extraordinary energies flow, and when it’s over a work of art sits in front of me. String theory suggests that we inhabit eleven dimensions. It seems to me that art is birthed from dimensions beyond the familiar three. The unconscious may well be one such dimension. With my work I seek to capture something hidden below the surface. Like an alchemist I pursue a hidden aspect within my subject and struggle to bring it to light. When I succeed the final artifact is like the wordless shard of a nearly forgotten dream.

Christopher Paul Brown identifies as an alchemist. He also sees himself as a primitive hunter-gatherer rather than a modern urban agrarian. Relying on serendipity and synchronicity in lieu of elaborate planning, he seeks to uncover the unconscious and dimensions beyond the familiar three. He completed a BA in Film in 1980 and his first solo photography show exhibited in 1985. He describes his approach as Radical Play and he employs polar opposites such as intent/openness and obscure/reveal to allow paradox and invite the flow of alchemical energies while he works.